


You’ll No Longer Burn

by linaerys



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-05
Updated: 2007-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:56:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S1, Peter learns to control his powers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You’ll No Longer Burn

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://marcolette.livejournal.com/profile)[**marcolette**](http://marcolette.livejournal.com/) gave me the idea, and [](http://mandysbitch.livejournal.com/profile)[**mandysbitch**](http://mandysbitch.livejournal.com/) helped me whip it into shape. Many thanks to both of you. All remaining mistakes are my own.

It was Bennet who told them they couldn’t go back. He found them in a motel near Buffalo. Peter woke to the sound of a knock on the door, feeling a disorientation that didn’t pass when he opened the door and saw Bennet standing in the doorway.

“You’re both alive? Good,” he said, and pushed past Peter into the room.

“Barely,” said Peter. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Nathan sat up slowly in the bed and rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “You’re . . .?” he said.

“Noah Bennet. Claire will be glad to know you’re both okay.”

“You’ll tell her?” asked Peter.

“At some point,” said Bennet.

“How did you know we were here?” Nathan asked.

“The Walker system,” said Bennet. “We stole it from Linderman’s company. He won’t be able to track you.”

“Linderman’s dead,” said Nathan.

“His company is not,” said Bennet. “Your mother—except for a few minor bequests, he left everything to her. The empire, the company. I don’t have as much information as I’d like, but she’s deeply involved.”

Peter heard Nathan’s thoughts, the heavy inward sigh of acceptance, the _yes, that makes sense._

“Why should we believe you?” asked Nathan.

“Ask your brother.”

“He’s telling the truth, Nathan,” said Peter.

“How can you—?” Nathan asked.

“I can read his thoughts.” Peter pleaded with his eyes for Nathan to wait and ask him about it later.

“I didn’t want to trust _you_ ,” said Bennet. “Claire convinced me. We have reason to believe Sylar is still alive. We need you, Peter.” _We need you strong_ , Peter heard him add.

Peter fought the buzz of panic that filled his head at the mention of Sylar’s name. “Get it under control, Peter,” said Bennet, starting to back toward the door. “He’s not here.”

Peter looked down to see his hands glowing again, just a tracery of fire lighting the bones under the skin. He felt another spike of fear and glanced at Nathan. Nathan nodded carefully at him, and Peter could feel the panic leaving him. Nathan was here and alive, he reminded himself, and New York was whole.

“What do you suggest?” asked Nathan, his voice edged with sarcasm. Any other time, Peter would have enjoyed watching Nathan and Bennet’s restrained sparring. They were pretty evenly matched. Being willing to sacrifice himself to save New York didn’t seem to diminish Nathan’s interest in petty power games.

“Peter needs to be able to control his powers before he’s of any use to us,” said Bennet.

“What if I don’t want to be ‘of use’ to you?”

“You still need to get that power under control,” said Bennet. Peter glanced at Nathan, who shrugged very slightly and then nodded in agreement.

“I will,” said Peter.

“Go somewhere remote. North of here. Don’t let anyone know you’re alive,” said Bennet. “I brought some money and supplies.”

“Heidi?” asked Nathan.

“It’s better if she thinks you’re dead,” said Bennet. “No one can make her tell what she doesn’t know.”

 _Better for her anyway_ , Peter heard Nathan think. His next thought barely had words, just a mixture of guilt and resolve that made Peter ache.

“Peter, Ted learned to control his power, but it wasn’t easy. You can burn clean—it doesn’t have to be radioactive. He told me . . .” An unreadable look passed over Bennet’s features, and Peter couldn’t hear the accompanying thought. “He told me that when he burned clean it felt good—he could feel the difference. You can burn bright instead of hot and cause an EMP—knock out any electric systems in the radius of the blast without hurting anyone.”

“Thank you,” said Nathan. “You got that, Pete?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Peter nodded. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

 _Ted’s power killed his wife_ , Peter heard Bennet think as he glanced at Peter. Peter saw a vision of Nathan burned and dying, charred patches of skin flaking off his arms, more likely borne of fear and memories than prophecy, and he shook his head to banish it.

“I can heal him,” said Peter. He’d healed Nathan after they fell, without even knowing what he was doing, or who the power came from. Maybe he would be able to do it again, or maybe he wouldn’t have to.

Bennet’s eyes widened. “Oh? That _is_ helpful.”

“How do I control it?” asked Peter.

“Practice,” he said, and Peter felt a flash of annoyance. Claude had said that too. “I’ll be in contact,” said Bennet. He stood up and walked toward the door. “Don’t try to find me. I’ll find you.”

After the door closed Peter opened the package Bennet had left behind. Inside were Canadian passports with Peter and Nathan’s pictures but the names were Peter and Nathan Parker. There were ATM cards for CIBC, a stack of cash, and a strange device that looked like a portable microphone. The dial measured in Curies.

“It’s a Geiger counter,” said Nathan. He turned it on and it emitted a slow, steady stream of clicks. “Measures radioactivity.” When he moved it closer to Peter’s hands the clicking sped up.

“He thought of everything,” said Peter, shoving his hands in his pockets.

***

Kiosk was an abandoned mill town on the north side of Ontario’s Algonquin National Park. The park was a network of lakes, some of which were only accessible by canoe, or kayak, or the rangers’ pontoon planes. The mill in Kiosk had burned to the ground in 1973, and the Park Service had not allowed the town’s residents to rebuild it, but instead had subsumed the town into the park, and forced the residents of Kiosk to leave.

Now it was a dead town, a ghost town. Nathan found a ranger’s cabin for rent for the winter, a few miles down an unnamed street that might have been Kiosk’s main street when people still called the town home. The street turned into an unpaved track as it neared the lake.

The cabin had two rooms, one that was little more than an entrance way with a single bed shoved into one corner. The other which had a double bed, a couch, and the kitchen area. The cabin was idiosyncratic in its modernization. It had outlets and electric lights, although they were all on one breaker and the ranger said they shouldn’t plug in more than a few things at a time. The kitchen area had a narrow electric stove with only two working burners. There was a sink with running water and a mirror in one corner, but no toilet, only an outhouse twenty paces back into the woods, where an uneven door let in small drifts of snow when the wind blew.

Living in the cabin was so alien from Nathan’s day-to-day life that at first it felt like a vacation. After filling the cabin with smoke a few times, he learned to start a fire that would catch quickly and heat the place. There was a trick to that, which he taught himself by trial and error, and a trick to keeping the coals hot overnight—half burying them in ashes and turning down the airflow to keep them burning slow and steady.

Peter initially wanted to test his ability to burn clean in the upper atmosphere. “I don’t want to hurt the wildlife,” he said. Sometimes he looked away when he said things like that, embarrassed at what Nathan would think of the sentiment. He didn’t this time, though.

“You’ll burn off the ozone layer . . . or something bad,” said Nathan.

“You think?” asked Peter.

“I used to know this stuff,” said Nathan. “The lake. Water cleans and cools the radiation.”

The first time Peter tested his power again, he vaporized so much water that it created a strange weather system over the north edge of the park. The lake took a week to reach its former level again. Nathan watched the mud dry at the water’s edge, and then it froze over night, traceries of lacy ice forming over the thick black muck. The lake was fed by an underground stream and a few rivers flowing into it, and it filled again slowly. Every morning Nathan heard the ice buckle and crack as it separated from the shore. It sounded like a shotgun, and he heard birds—crows, maybe—cawing and flapping their wings as they took off in surprise.

Nathan looked after the cabin while Peter spent his days in the woods, practicing and learning to control his powers. It took a surprising amount of work each day just to gather enough wood to heat the house. The ranger had told Nathan that only already downed wood was fair game, and it was back-breaking work, taking the sled out into the woods and sawing up sections of dead trees to bring back and split small enough that they would burn in the wood stove.

Nathan chopped kindling every morning, until Peter offered to help. “If I chop off my thumb doing this, I can grow it back,” Peter said, with a hint of a smirk, a glimpse of his former self that made Nathan swallow hard. So Peter took over that chore and if he chopped off his thumb or anything else cutting wood, he didn’t tell Nathan.

Peter spent the days in the lake, first breaking the ice, then, once he could, melting it, with his hands under the water, controlling this power. He used the Geiger counter to check his radiation levels—learned to keep them low. Nathan watched out the kitchen window. From there, Nathan could see Peter where he stood in his strange little thawed circle on the opposite shore of the lake.

One horrifying night Nathan went out in the cold and found Peter frozen solid like cordwood five hundred yard from the house. During the afternoon a light dusting of snow had fallen, so at least Nathan could follow Peter’s tracks with a flashlight. Peter had been wearing only shirt-sleeves that day, and no gloves, no hat. Nathan carried Peter back in his arms, feeling frozen himself, and laid Peter’s body by the fire. He watched as the milky film in Peter’s eyes turned clear again, as Peter’s blue flesh turned pink.

“Are you trying to die?” Nathan asked when Peter sat up gasping. Whatever cold had choked off Peter’s breath felt like it was now in Nathan’s own lungs. “Don’t do that again,” he said, voice crisp to mask the concern. “Tell me where you’ll be when you go off to . . . practice.” Peter just stared at him. “And take reasonable precautions. A hat. Gloves, perhaps.”

“I’m fine, Nathan,” said Peter, sullen like a small child. He wasn’t talking much to Nathan at that point. When Peter looked at him, Nathan could see a mixture of awe and guilt in his eyes, something that could only pass with time, and Nathan didn’t intend to push him. Nathan stood up to get Peter a blanket. His back was turned when Peter said, “You died for me,” almost inaudibly.

“I didn’t,” said Nathan.

“But you would have. I can’t die . . .”

Nathan pressed his lips together. “We don’t know that,” he said, ignoring the emotional tangle in favor of more practical concerns. “I don’t think we need to test it.”

The closest town with any amenities was called Fossmill and was twelve miles from the park. In the summer a number of Park tourists came through, but in the winter only the rangers used it. Some of pontoon planes that the rangers used to get to the remote lakes were turned into ski planes in the winter, and they refueled in Fossmill.

Nathan refueled in Fossmill, too. Once a week, he took the beat-up truck over ill-plowed roads the twenty miles to the town. He grew in a short beard like most of the men who lived up here in the winter. He kept it trimmed as well as he could with a pair of nail scissors, and trimmed his hair too. Peter’s was growing long and he had to tie it back with a rubber band into a small club at the nape of his neck. Nathan wanted to ask him to cut it, but every time he opened his mouth to say so, he thought better of it. Maybe Peter needed to be someone else now.

One day some lonely impulse took him into the town’s gift-shop-cum-internet-café. “You Nathan Parker?” asked the proprietor when Nathan walked through the door.

Nathan had been going by Nate when he had to give a name. Nate Parker and his brother Peter Parker. Peter had pointed out the silliness of that pseudonym and Nathan wondered if Bennet was having some fun at their expense.

Nathan started back in surprise when the proprietor said his name. The man had the sluggish, back-country Canadian accent Nathan had grown used to in the past month, but hearing Nathan’s name startled him. “Nate,” he said, extending his hand, curbing the wide, white-toothed smile he usually released with his handshake. People smiled seldom up here in the winter. They measured their words, their deeds, hoarding their energy against the cold. Nathan knew cold, knew icy reserve, but this was different, a diffident slowness of manner, not snobbish, not clannish, just considered.

“There’s a package for you,” said the proprietor, without volunteering his name in return. “Shipped to me, inside was for you: a picture and your name. Said if you told me your daughter’s name, you could have it.”

Nathan swallowed against a sudden dryness in his mouth. “Claire.”

“Well, Mr. Parker,” the man said, “this here is for you.” He handed Nathan a small, heavy package, wrapped with twine.

Nathan paid for a few minutes of connection time and checked the news from New York. He browsed some older stories on CNN and saw pictures of Heidi and his mother at the funeral. Heidi revealed she could walk again and agreed to take over her husband’s seat in Congress. Nathan watched a video of her talking to the press, her bright blue eyes shocking against the pale white of her skin, the black of her hair and coat.

“My husband had many ideas for how to make this country a better place,” she said. Her voice was full of strength and sorrow. Mrs. Petrelli stood behind her, face impassive. “He wanted to reform organized crime legislation, and that will be my first goal as your congresswoman.” Nathan felt a surge of love for her, more pure than it had ever been before now that it was useless.

Nathan looked at news stories on the computer for as long as he could stand before leaving and completing his other errands: buying food, kerosene, matches. He flipped through the 95-cent paperbacks near the checkout at the grocery store, spines creased from summer tourists, and added a pile of them to his groceries. They were romances and Tom Clancy’s macho fantasies, but it would be a long winter, and at worst they could be used to start fires.

When he got back to the cabin, Nathan made himself put away the groceries and do some other chores before reading Bennet’s note.

“Who’s it from?” asked Peter.

“Bennet,” said Nathan. The package held more money, well worn Canadian bills, tens and twenties, wrapped in uneven stacks.

 _Nathan--_ , read the note. _So far, no one disbelieves your mother’s proclamation. Peter is needed very badly where I am. Please advise me on his progress as soon as you can._

He included some details about Sylar. How he’d heard rumors of Sylar resurfacing in New York, then in Florida. Matt was dead, and Nathan read in the hints that Bennet had taken him off life support in the hospital rather than let Sylar take his ability. People were dying, Bennet wrote, but the Walker system was safe, as was Claire.

 _Contact me at ark112007@gmail.com to give me a better way to get packages to you. Best,_ and it was finished with a messy squiggle of ink, in which Nathan strained to find Bennet’s name, and perhaps Claire’s as well.

Peter watched Nathan intently.

“Don’t listen to him, Pete,” said Nathan, after he finished reading. Peter would have listened to Nathan’s thoughts as he read the letter, and now he’d be freaking out. “You’re no good to anyone right now.”

Peter looked hurt and Nathan regretted his lack of tact. “I mean, controlling this is a higher priority than anything. You know that.”

***

Peter didn’t tell Nathan what it felt like, the burning power trying to claw its way out of his skin, scratching along the inside of his veins like a fever. The only way he could control it was to retreat into himself, cut himself off from any emotion, good or bad.

The desolation of the Northern woods helped. The lake iced over before the first snow fell and Peter liked to walk across it. He listened to the ice shift and groan under his weight. There were a few other cabins on the lake, untenanted in the winter, and Peter peered in their windows, trying to imagine who stayed in them during the summer. One cabin had a swing-set out front, rickety and rusting. Someone’s kids had played there once, but they were probably all grown now.

Peter remembered New York receding beneath them as Nathan flew them into the sky. He barely remembered pushing Nathan away, the explosion, and the earth coming up to meet him—it was less flying than controlled falling—but he took off again, as soon as he could stand, and flew until he found Nathan a few miles away on the roof of a warehouse in the Bronx. Nathan’s arms and face were charred, and he was unconscious.

“Don’t die, Nathan,” Peter had repeated over and over, “don’t die.” And Nathan didn’t; the burns turned to living flesh as Peter watched, and then Nathan coughed and started breathing again.

“Who can heal, Nathan?” Peter asked when Nathan woke. He was pacing back and forth, but he stopped and looked at Nathan, and then down at his hands, wondering what betrayal they might commit next.

“Linderman,” said Nathan. “He’s dead. You must have . . .”

“I haven’t seen him in years. I just . . . I wanted you healed,” said Peter.

Linderman. He might have thought of Linderman briefly, while looking for someone to blame, but this was too much, another gift he hadn’t asked for.

But at least Nathan was alive. Peter wasn’t sure he liked the look of the beard, and Nathan clearly wasn’t either. When he sat reading or looking at the fire, he pursed his lips and stroked his thumbnail along the grain of the hair at his jaw line, as if considering its merits. Peter wondered what it would feel like under his hand, but they confined their touches to shoulder pats, or Nathan’s guiding hand on Peter’s waist when they passed each other in the close proximity of cabin.

Nathan slid into the skin of an outdoorsman too well, and Peter wondered if that was what made him such a good politician, that chameleon ability. Then again, Nathan had been behind in the polls until the very end. Peter added that to the list of things to ask Nathan about, when his courage let him.

“Maybe we should get skis,” said Peter, after the first snowfall. “For something to do during the winter; if we’ll be here that long.”

“We’ll be here as long as we need to be,” said Nathan. His expressions weren’t quite the same with the beard, the significant set of his mouth lost under the hair, but Peter could read it anyway, without resorting to mind-reading.

***

November had been dry so far, just a few inches of snow, but Nathan heard the men in Fossmill discussing it at the hardware store. “It’s going to be a bad winter,” they said when Nathan asked where to find a snow shovel.

“Should I get two?” Nathan asked lightly.

One of them stroked his beard, considering. “Could do,” he said finally. “One might break.”

The first big storm came on Thanksgiving, whiting out the windows around the cabin. There was a small wall calendar in the cabin’s kitchenette, and Nathan crossed off the days there, saw when his birthday passed, let it go by without comment.

Forty should mean something, he thought, but up here it didn’t. In New York he might have thrown a big party, an opportunity for political networking, and shoring up alliances before the House was in session. An opportunity for Heidi to dance again, perhaps, for Simon and Monty to wear their kids’ tuxes, he thought, allowing himself the luxury of regret while Peter was out of the house, too far away to hear his thoughts.

“Happy Birthday,” Peter said. “Belated. Sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

“That’s okay,” said Nathan, after waiting a beat too long. He held Peter’s gaze for a moment before Peter looked away again.

Nathan had bought a turkey, the fixings for stuffing, some canned cranberry relish and a frozen Sara Lee pumpkin pie on his Sunday trip into town. It surprised him, the satisfaction he got out of these little, homey duties, the little successes like making a hot dinner, keeping the cabin warm, shoveling the snow from behind the truck’s wheels.

“Come home early today,” said Nathan when Peter went out into the woods to practice. Home, Nathan thought. No, it wasn’t that.

The flakes were falling thick when Peter came back that afternoon. “I was flying,” he said, a subdued note of wonder in his voice. He brushed the snow off his shoulders and hung up his canvas coat by the door. “What are you making?”

“Thanksgiving dinner,” said Nathan. “Flying?”

“Flying while invisible.”

Nathan nodded. “Multi-tasking.”

Peter walked over to the stove and stood next to Nathan, warming his hands over the pot of mashed potatoes. “It’s cold up there,” he said.

Nathan brushed some snow out of Peter’s hair. It fell on the hot stovetop and sputtered until it boiled away.

“Think we’ll get snowed in?” Peter asked.

“Not this time, but I’ve been stocking up on canned goods.” Nathan shook his head at that, at how narrow their lives had become.

The turkey came out charred on the outside and underdone near the bone. Peter, ever loyal, blamed the finicky oven, but Nathan knew his lack of talent in the kitchen probably had something to do with it. He was good at omelets—it had been the best food for a bachelor to know how to make—and had eventually expanded into waffles and pancakes after the boys came along, but dinner food was still hit-or-miss.

“When I get better at this I’ll cook it myself,” said Peter. He extended his index finger and let a trail of fire play along the edge.

Nathan raised his eyebrows. “Impressive,” he said.

“No radiation,” said Peter. “But I can only do it a couple times before . . .” He didn’t finish, but a flash of fear lit his eyes, and Nathan knew the rest.

“I’ll heat up the pie,” said Nathan.

“I’m stuffed,” said Peter, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his stomach.

“So you’ll sleep it off tomorrow; nothing else to do.”

The snow falling all around the cabin made it seem even quieter inside. Nathan could hear the small sounds the house made, the crackle of the wood burning in the wood stove fading into the insulation of the snow around the house. He put the pumpkin pie in the oven to warm up, and grabbed a second bottle of the Chianti he’d picked up in Fossmill. The bottle had been dusty, sitting on a back shelf for years before Nathan asked for it. They drank beer and whiskey up here.

They’d finished one bottle during dinner, and Nathan felt the pleasant warmth settle in his limbs more strongly than it used to when he drank at receptions and fundraisers every night.

“Want me to open another one?” asked Nathan. “They didn’t have any Beaujolais Nouveau.” He turned to look at Peter, who had a speculative look in his eyes. Peter glanced from Nathan’s hand, which cradled a glass of wine, up to Nathan’s face. Nathan swallowed. That wasn’t where this was supposed to be going.

Part of him wanted to be misreading Peter, to believe this feeling was residual, a side effect of the upwelling of warmth he felt now that Peter could finally look at him with his eyes full of trust.

“Sure,” said Peter. He licked his lips, and Nathan could see his throat work as he swallowed.

“The pie will be ready in fifteen minutes. And I have ice cream.”

“Decadent,” said Peter, with a little smile.

Sara Lee pie couldn’t touch the pies from Sarabeth Catering that Heidi used to buy during the holidays, but it still tasted good after days when dinner was nothing more than canned soup and the biscuits Nathan had learned to make from the recipe on the back of the baking powder box. After they were finished with dessert Nathan sat back in chair.

This was the first evening here that Peter didn’t fall asleep right after dinner, and sleep for twelve or fourteen hours. Nathan looked at his watch. Dinner had been early; it was only 5pm, but the light coming in through the windows was a deep, twilit gray, the snow blocking most of what little light was left.

“What now?” asked Peter.

“I should buy some board games next time I’m in town,” said Nathan, only half sarcastic.

“Have some more wine,” said Peter. “Tell me a story.”

“What?” asked Nathan.

“Tell me about . . . Claire’s mother,” said Peter, as if choosing the subject at random, but Nathan knew better.

“What’s to tell?” said Nathan, frowning. “She was a sweet Texas girl. She got pregnant; I got scared. Ma . . .”

Mrs. Petrelli gave her money to raise the child, to get out of Nathan’s life, and Meredith took it. “She didn’t even hesitate, Nathan,” Mrs. Petrelli had said. “Be glad you found out now.”

“Ma took care of it,” said Nathan.

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s just me, Nathan, and you still can’t . . .”

Nathan closed his eyes for a long moment then opened them and looked at Peter, waiting for the rest of Peter’s recriminations, but Peter sighed, drained his glass of wine, and then poured another.

“Guess we should get a board game,” said Peter.

“It’s water under the bridge, Pete.”

“Mom always managed everything, huh?” said Peter. “She knew about the explosion, too.”

Dangerous territory. “Yes, she did. She didn’t think it could be stopped.” Or should be stopped.

Peter wanted to ask more, Nathan could tell, to ask if that was why Nathan hadn’t tried to stop it. We didn’t think it could be stopped, Nathan wanted to say, but that wasn’t entirely true. It had been easier to believe it couldn’t be stopped than to face the alternative.

Peter nodded and reached across the table to put his hand over Nathan’s. “I never said thank you,” Peter said gravely.

Out of habit, Nathan wanted to pull his hand away, to try again to define the distance between them, but instead he sighed and left it there. Peter’s hand was cool, no hint of fire. “For what?” Nathan asked.

“For dinner,” said Peter. He made a face, but then grew serious again, eyes wide and sincere. “For saving me, for saving everyone. ”

“It wasn’t . . .” It had been selfish in its way: the realization that he couldn’t live with what killing all those people would do to Peter.

“It was more than that,” said Peter. “You lie to yourself a lot, Nathan.”

Nathan shrugged. “Everyone does.” He started stacking the plates in front of him.

“I guess I should help you clean up,” Peter said.

“You guess?” said Nathan, trying for levity. He looked over at the turkey carcass, still in the roasting pan on the stove. In the Petrelli household, Thanksgiving was always catered, and the turkey came to the table already carved. At least Heidi’s mother cooked their Thanksgiving dinners, and afterward the women gathered in the kitchen, picking apart the bird, eating bits of skin, and gossiping, while the men drank scotch and watched college football.

“Yeah, we can freeze some of this,” said Nathan. “You strip the bird. I’ll take care of everything else.”

The water that came out of the only sink was tepid at best, so Nathan filled a pot for cooking and rinsing water and put it on the woodstove to heat up. Peter waved off the carving knife when Nathan tried to hand it to him and instead used his fingers to pry all the meat off the bones.

Nathan was halfway finished washing dishes when Peter dumped the turkey bones into the trash can and declared he was done. His wrists were covered with grease and Nathan could see a shiny smudge on his cheek where Peter had touched his face.

Nathan watched, feeling helpless as Peter spread his hands and started licking off the small pieces of turkey meat still clinging. At first he did it unselfconsciously, but Nathan could see when Peter realized Nathan was looking. Peter ran his tongue over his thumb more slowly, and sucked hard enough on his fingers to make his cheeks hollow. Nathan couldn’t look away—this hadn’t changed, or been burned away like the rest of Nathan’s life—Peter could still do this to him.

Then Peter looked at Nathan, and it made his face heat.

“Do you miss it?” asked Peter, brazen.

“Don’t,” said Nathan, “we were past that. You agreed.” He could hear his voice go monotone: his trick to keep from betraying emotion, a habit so ingrained now that he couldn’t turn it off, like the habit of pushing Peter away. He didn’t know why he thought it mattered anymore.

Peter echoed his thoughts. “You don’t have to worry about your campaign anymore, Nathan.” That was selfish of Peter, Nathan thought. Peter forgot what he’d cost Nathan, what he still cost. “You want some turkey?” Peter asked.

Nathan shook his head slightly. “No.”

“Then let me wash my hands,” He came and stood next to Nathan and put his hands in the wash pot, his arm brushing against Nathan’s in the soapy water. He had a crumb of stuffing on his lower lip.

“You have a little . . .” said Nathan, motioning with his eyes.

Peter licked his lips but missed the crumb. “Is it still there?” he asked, a mocking, daring note in his voice. Peter was already standing close enough that their sides were touching and now he leaned in further.

“We’re not doing this,” said Nathan. He darted a glance at Peter, waiting for Peter to push Nathan just a little further. His anger at Peter didn’t make Peter any less attractive—more, probably, because now Nathan just wanted to push Peter down on the bed and fuck him hard, knowing it would hurt him, knowing Peter wanted it that way.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Peter, his face coloring a deeper pink, lips parted and wanton. “I can hear your thoughts.”

“Not the ones that matter,” said Nathan. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder to force some more distance between them. “You need to get these powers under control, and then help Bennet. Not use them to . . . whatever this is.”

“ _We_ need to help Bennet,” said Peter. “There’s nothing left for you in New York.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Nathan said. He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath. “I don’t blame you, Peter,” he said, holding up his hand. “Just . . . give me time to get used to it, okay?”

“Okay Nathan,” said Peter. He looked hurt. Nathan wanted to pull him close and kiss the lines of worry from his forehead.

“I’m going to take a walk,” said Nathan, pulling on his coat. “Or maybe fly.” That made Peter smile.

Nathan came back later, after a trip too close to the stars, feeling frozen through but more at peace. Peter was sleeping in the bed in the living room, but Nathan pushed him over and climbed in next to him. Peter could share his warmth. He owed Nathan that much.

***

Peter went with Nathan on his trip to Fossmill the next day. The truck’s battery wouldn’t hold a charge, so they pushed it down a gentle slope to get it started and drove into town to buy a new one. Peter trailed behind Nathan in the grocery store, feeling like a little kid. He watched Nathan pushing a cart and wondered if Nathan had ever even been grocery shopping before they came here, but Nathan had been in college, lived on a base in Texas; he’d had apartments Peter had never seen, lived lives Peter knew nothing about.

He listened to Nathan’s thoughts as they walked through the store: a slight mental sneer at the selection, the choice between two kinds of canned minestrone, then a quick image of Peter from the night before. Had his cheeks really been so flushed? Nathan seemed to think so.

He’d never doubted that Nathan wanted him too. Nathan loved him, Nathan wanted him, and Nathan would do anything for him. Nathan lied to him, belittled him, and used him also, but that was who Nathan’s life had trained him to be, not who Peter knew he could be.

And Nathan wanted Peter still, under his anger, under his fear of becoming too dependent on the only person who knew he was alive. That was typically Nathan: scared of nothing in the world but his own weakness.

They went to have a cup of coffee in the Fossmill diner, so Nathan could read the paper and they could both have time in the company of other people. Peter listened to thoughts and conversations, while Nathan scoured the AP sections of a local paper, scowling at how there was no mention of any of the events in New York.

“Strange things happening in New York?” said Peter under his breath. “That isn’t really newsworthy.” Nathan frowned at him and turned the page.

“You boys staying on the Lake?” asked one of the men sitting at the bar. Peter noticed he’d emptied a flask into his coffee and wondered how many people who stayed up here all winter drank away the boredom. The Lake, in an area with hundreds, meant Lake Kioshkowi, Peter had learned. Nathan barely looked up, but Peter smiled and nodded.

“You lose power yet?”

“Not yet,” said Peter.

“You will,” said the man. He looked at Nathan, and Peter followed his gaze. Nathan cradled his coffee cup and saucer in his hands, and then reached out with a long, elegant finger to turn the page of the paper, as if he were sitting in the breakfast nook in the Gramercy Park house, rather than a diner booth. “You aren’t from here, are you?” asked the man.

“No,” said Peter. He could feel the slight pressure on his nerves of other people around him, their minds ready to open to him, but Peter was able to shut them out. There were much fewer people than in New York, and if anyone in Fossmill had powers for Peter to absorb, he hadn’t met them yet.

“Anyone here we have to worry about?” Nathan asked as they drove home.

“No,” said Peter. “We’re the only new people this winter.”

“What do they think?”

“They don’t know why anyone would stay here in the winter if they didn’t have to. One guy didn’t like the beard.”

Peter watched Nathan out of the corner of his eyes and saw him glance at himself in the rearview mirror. “But they all have . . .,” he said, and then made a face. “Right. If you don’t like it, Pete, just say so.”

***

A few nights later, Peter woke from a dream of a tree falling on the cabin. He sat up, heard the low moan of wind through the trees, and the cracking and tearing noise of big branches being wrenched from trees.

“Nathan, wake up,” said Peter as he shook Nathan’s shoulder. “A tree is going to fall on us.”

“Okay, Pete,” said Nathan, his voice rough with sleep. “Tonight?”

“I think so.”

Peter saw Nathan nod and swallow. They pulled on their outerwear and went outside. The wind was blowing hard and every step was difficult. “Which tree?” Nathan yelled over the wind.

“I don’t know,” Peter yelled back. He looked up at the trees silhouetted against the midnight sky. They all looked the same. Then the wind died down for a moment, and the silence made Peter’s ears ring. He heard a deep groaning noise, and looked up as a huge conifer swayed toward them. He could see its roots pulling up out of the shore of the lake, too shallow to hold it against these winds.

All he could think of was Niki Sanders, swinging the parking meter into Sylar’s stomach, and how her strength had felt in his limbs. He didn’t know if it was enough. “Pete, we can find another cabin,” said Nathan. “Don’t—.”

Peter watched the tree fall as if in slow motion. The top plummeted toward the cabin. Peter flew up into the air and hit the tree with his midsection, knocking the wind out of him and throwing the tree off its course. It crashed to the side of the cabin, its upper branches just grazing the windows.

Peter didn’t feel the pain until after the tree had landed, and Nathan rushed to his side.

“Peter . . .” said Nathan, “You’ve got . . .” Then the wind rose and tore the rest of his words away.

Peter looked down and saw a branch sticking through his stomach and coming out the other side. Peter ripped the branch off the tree with his hands and pulled it out of himself. Nathan looked away.

Peter felt the skin and muscles knitting. It itched for a moment and then all that remained was the blood on his hands and the hole in his shirt. He looked up at Nathan and saw his brow wrinkled in distaste.

“Gross, huh?” he said with bravado he didn’t feel.

After they got inside, Peter stripped off his shirt and looked at his stomach in the mirror. He washed the blood off but there didn’t seem to be any damage underneath. He shrugged. This was getting less extraordinary each time it happened.

Nathan heated some water for a bath. When it was warm, Peter took off the rest of his clothes and sat down in the tub. There wasn’t much blood left on him, but it felt good to wash off the sweat of adrenaline. Maybe he could still sleep a little tonight. Peter closed his eyes and laid his head back against the edge of the tub.

“Couldn’t you have—I don’t know—moved it with your mind or something?” Nathan asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure I could move something that big,” he said. “But I’ll practice that too,” he added wearily. He heard Nathan pacing around him.

Peter stood up from the bath and Nathan handed him a towel. Nathan had spent a hundred dollars on thick, fluffy towels—one of the few luxuries to be found in Fossmill—and they were worth every penny. Peter wrapped it around him, and stepped out of the tub.

They always warmed up the bathwater on the stove, but this time Peter hadn’t let it cool as he sat in the tub. He could control the power enough to let some heat seep out of his skin and into the water. “It’s still warm. I kept it warm,” he said, a note of pride creeping into his voice.

“That’s good,” said Nathan. “Very good.” He stood up and stripped off his shirt—flannel, Peter noted with amusement—then his Carhartt Sherpa-lined pants, which had been on special at the Fossmill general store. “They’re warm,” Nathan had said, running an appraising thumb along the soft fabric of the lining, like he would have done to an Italian wool suit, a few months before.

“Still hot,” said Nathan when he sat down in the bath.

“I’ll save on our heating bill,” said Peter.

“There’s plenty of wood.”

“Let me know if it cools off,” said Peter. He put his hand into the water and released a little more heat.

“You mean I could have had fresh water?” asked Nathan.

Peter shrugged. “Next time.”

“That’s warm enough,” said Nathan after Peter brushed his hand, mostly accidentally, against Nathan’s side. He didn’t look at Peter, but Peter could hear the warning in Nathan’s voice, his instinct to push Peter away, and the thought underneath, _please . . . can’t_.

Can’t what? Peter wanted to say, but instead he said, “I’ll bring you a towel.” Peter stood up and got the other good towel from the shelves they called the linen closet. Nathan stood up and stepped out of the tub. Peter wrapped the towel around Nathan’s shoulders, trailing his hand along Nathan’s arm as Peter let go.

Nathan couldn’t hide the effect Peter had on him, not wearing a towel around his shoulders and nothing else. He looked at Peter accusingly.

“Tell me you don’t, still . . .” said Peter “Tell me you don’t want it.”

Nathan brought his hand up to cup Peter’s jaw, hard and ungentle, still holding Peter at arm’s length. Peter could feel the tension in Nathan’s arm, and he turned his face so he could kiss the palm of Nathan’s hand. Peter wondered how many times it had gone this way, how many times he’d twisted one of Nathan’s dominating gestures into something else.

Nathan moved his fingers down Peter’s shoulder, and now it was more of a caress. He still wore a frown, and he looked hard at his hand on Peter’s skin. Then Peter felt Nathan’s decision, the moment he let himself give in. Peter’s limbs filled with heat, and he felt himself getting hard at this simple touch. It had been so long since they had touched like this. Sharing a small cabin meant he didn’t get much private time to take care of things by himself. His cock jumped at the thought of hands, anyone’s hands, touching him again.

Then the heat became all-consuming, more than just the flush of lust. He stepped backward and almost fell over, as the sickeningly familiar glow started to course over his hands and up his arms. He dropped his towel, ran naked out into the snow, down the slope toward the lake, and punched his way through the six inches of ice on top.

He felt the bones in his hand shatter and crunch against each other. He switched to the other hand, until they were both in so much agony he could hear them screaming in his head, but there was enough of a hole for him to slide under the water and into the lake.

“Cold slows all of the body’s functions,” he remembered one of his nursing professors telling him, “both autonomic and voluntary.” The memory of that cool, dispassionate voice seemed to quell the panic. Peter slipped under the ice and felt a pain like knives in his chest, but none in his hands and feet. They had already gone numb.

He looked at his hands under the water. He could no longer feel them either, but he could move them, so they must have healed. They were still glowing, though, so he stayed there, until his consciousness started to waver and the glow faded.

It seemed to take forever to swim back to the hole he had made, even though it was only a few yards away. The moonlight was filtered and dim under the water, and he turned onto his back to look up at the strange whorls and patterns on the bottom of the ice. No one ever sees the ice like this, he thought, before his vision went black.

The next thing he remembered was Nathan hauling him out of the water onto the shore of the lake, carrying him into the cabin and laying down him on the braided rug next to the fire.

“Twice,” Nathan muttered under his breath as he toweled off Peter’s arms and legs. “More than that. More times than . . .” Peter’s head lolled back and he looked up at Nathan. “Do you know how cold that water is?” Nathan asked, exasperation pinching off his words.

“Thirty-three degrees. Wait, they use Celsius here, right?”

“Yes,” said Nathan, frowning as he rubbed the towel over Peter’s chest. Then he looked at Peter’s face again and started sputtering with laughter. He sat back on his heels and laughed so hard Peter wondered if he’d finally driven Nathan to snap.

“Nathan?” asked Peter. He put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Tell me what’s so funny.”

He stopped as abruptly as he started. “It’s not really,” he said. “It’s just . . . never mind. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. I’m indestructible, remember. You don’t have to keep on . . .” Keep on saving me, he wanted to say, but that wasn’t really true. He never wanted Nathan to stop saving him. “You shouldn’t worry so much. I can survive a lot.”

“So I see. And you can still remember that Canada uses Celsius.” That brought the slightly manic look back to Nathan’s eyes.

“Yeah, see, I’m fine.” Peter put his hand on Nathan’s arm and looked down at it, remembering what had caused all this: Nathan touching him, falling, feeling as out of control as he had in Kirby Plaza.

Nathan licked his lips and gave Peter a hard look. “What happened just then?”

“You were . . . and then I was . . . I thought I was in control of this. I was getting better, I swear.”

“I . . . we . . . caused this?” Nathan asked. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers.

“I was feeling warm, and then I was feeling _too_ warm.”

Nathan tilted his head to one side, and Peter didn’t have listen to Nathan’s thoughts to know what was coming next: we can’t, we won’t, we shouldn’t, it’s too dangerous. Nathan had said these words to him before.

“I guess you need more practice with your control,” Nathan said instead.

“What?”

“If sex sets it off, that’s a problem.” Nathan said the word “sex” brusquely, so they could pretend it was an abstract problem, an intellectual exercise, not the two of them. Most of the time Peter hated the way Nathan distanced himself from what was between them, but right now a little distance might help. “Next time you meet a pretty girl . . .” Nathan made a hand motion to suggest an explosion. “Boom.”

Or next time Nathan touched him, Peter thought. “What now?” Peter asked.

“Now, you rest. Tomorrow you test your control on your own as much as you can.” Nathan licked his lips. “Every way you can,” he said, giving Peter a hard stare.

***

The next afternoon, Peter came back from the woods with his clothes shredded and charred. “Do I want to know?” Nathan asked.

Peter glared at him, and Nathan imagined it anyway, the half-comical, half-alluring picture of Peter jerking off, somewhere in the woods, and then exploding. It wasn’t funny, not really—it was terrifying—the thought that Peter might never control it, that they might be stuck out here in the woods, orbiting each other and never touching. Now that he couldn’t, now that Peter’s power was a barrier between them, Nathan hated the thought that he couldn’t just reach over and brush the hair out of Peter’s eyes. He almost did, and instead let his hand graze over the shredded fabric sticking to Peter’s arm.

“No more polyester, huh?” said Nathan. Peter pulled off the shirt, not even wincing when bits of skin came away with it. The raw patches healed over as Nathan watched.

It was the Winter Solstice when the next big storm hit. Nathan yielded to temptation and went flying up above it, through the cold and wet of the gathering clouds and then above them. Outfacing the violence of the winds gave him a fierce kind of pleasure, a relief to be fighting something other than his own impatience.

Up above the clouds Nathan could see the full reach of the storm. It didn’t have a cyclone movement like a tropical storm, just a long bank of clouds, puffed up by the winds within, trailing off to the West further than Nathan could see, and growing dark as the sun lowered toward the horizon.

He dropped like a bullet through the clouds again, allowing gravity to give him more speed than he’d had on the ascent. He had a sense of where the earth was, like his body had some kind of radar, even when the dusk made it too dark to see where the clouds turned into falling snow, and where the snow fell onto the tops of the trees. He swooped down over Lake Manitou, and the old town of Kiosk, the tourist ghost town part, and then over Lake Kioshkokwi where their cabin stood.

The wind was blowing hard across the expanse of the lakes and flying was easier than walking up to the door. Peter wasn’t back yet from whatever his day’s training was. Nathan shook the snow off his coat, hung it up by the door, and went to poke at the fire. He’d left wood coals banked under the ashes, and the cabin was still warm. A few pieces of dry firewood, and he could coax a good blaze out of the stove again.

He heard the trees groaning in the wind and the faint crash in the distance as one came down. The lights in the cabin went out. The ranger who was renting them the cabin had warned them about this: that the power would go some time during the winter, and if their cabin were the only one affected, Hydro One would take its time getting the power lines fixed.

Nathan bought a kerosene lamp and boxes of candles at the general store. He started lighting them. Later he’d probably want to conserve them, but for now they lit the dark cabin with a charm the fluorescent lights had never possessed. It was getting near Christmas and he wanted lights.

Peter came home soon after, and Nathan saw him smile at the candles. “We lost power,” said Nathan. “I’ll make scrambled eggs on the wood stove. Maybe some baked beans. It’s a big storm.”

“How long do you think it will last?” asked Peter.

“It stretched further than I could see,” Nathan said. “Turn on the radio if you want a weather report.”

“You went flying up there?” asked Peter. Nathan nodded. “Take me with you next time,” said Peter.

“Are you ready for that?” asked Nathan.

“I’m getting there,” said Peter. “I’m getting close.” He glanced at Nathan and then looked away again.

“Meaning . . .?”

“Help me test my control, Nathan.” Peter’s eyes were pleading and Nathan didn’t feel like arguing. Peter’s wouldn’t be the only control that needed testing, Nathan thought.

“Dinner first,” said Nathan, fighting the urge to reach out toward Peter right that minute.

“After,” said Peter. “I want to know.”

It was strange to do this deliberately, after so long where Peter was the place Nathan fell when he couldn’t stay away anymore. He didn’t know what it would take to set Peter off again. Nathan reached across the space between them and cupped Peter’s chin in his hand—would that be enough? Peter looked scared and hopeful, even more than he had their first time—then he’d worn a mask of false bravado, enough to convince Nathan that Peter knew what he was doing.

The muscles in Peter’s jaw were tense under Nathan’s fingers. “You’ll be alright,” Nathan said, stepping in closer, so he could feel the heat coming off Peter’s body, just his natural warmth, for now. Nathan moved his hand down to Peter’s neck and massaged the muscles there, wishing he could will the tension gone.

For a moment, he wanted no more than to wrap his arms around Peter. He wanted more, but they hadn’t even been touching like family much, and Nathan missed these simple gestures. Peter clung to him like he had when they flew from Kirby Plaza, as if Nathan was his last link to sanity, to humanity.

“Shhhhh,” said Nathan, stroking Peter’s hair. “It will be okay.” Meaningless things in a gentle voice; it worked on horses, children, and Peter, when Peter was willing to let it.

Then Peter was pulling Nathan’s face toward his for a kiss that wasn’t for comfort, or controlled enough to test of Peter’s powers. “Please, Nathan,” he said against Nathan’s lips. Nathan stopped thinking, and followed the lines of muscles in Peter’s back with his hands. “Please,” said Peter again, and Nathan didn’t have to ask what he meant.

Nathan pulled Peter toward him with enough strength that he would have left bruises once, before Peter learned to heal. Nathan did want this; he needed Peter as much as he ever had. He wanted to make Peter his again, wrest him back from those jealous abilities of his.

He cupped his hand around Peter’s chin and traced Peter’s lips with his thumb, until Peter sucked it into his mouth, drawing patterns on it with his teeth. Nathan’s breath hitched and he started pulling Peter toward the bed, until Peter suddenly pushed him away hard enough to send Nathan tripping along the floor.

Nathan fell back against the bed and frowned at Peter, annoyed at having his pleasure interrupted, but then he saw Peter’s hands glowing, the strange shadows gathering under his eyes, made even stranger by the light from the candles. “Nathan,” Peter gasped, “I can’t. Can’t control it.”

“You’ve controlled it before,” said Nathan, standing up slowly, and going to open the door to the cabin. He didn’t trust Peter not to crash blindly through it, and the calm part of him balked at having to repair the hinges. “Do whatever it is you do,” Nathan said. Peter looked down at his hands and then screwed his eyes shut with fear. “Look at me, Peter. I won’t let you hurt anyone.” Peter opened his eyes. Nathan nodded slowly, keeping eye contact. “I promise.”

Peter glanced at the open door, terror burning bright on his face. “You can go outside if you need to,” said Nathan, keeping his voice level. “You’ll cool off in this storm.”

“No . . . I can . . .” And he did. The light faded from his hands, the glow went out of his eyes, and he collapsed to the floor.

Nathan rolled his eyes at Peter’s natural flair for the dramatic, annoyance masking his relief. Heaved him off the bed, checked for radiation, and resumed dinner preparations. His heart was hammering in his chest but it slowed as he broke the eggs, whisked them, chopped some canned tomatoes, and grated some cheese. Maybe he’d put a cover on the pot and call it a frittata.

He put the egg mixture on a cooler part of the wood stove to keep it warm, and went to check on Peter. He put his hand on Peter’s forehead and Peter’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m sorry, Nathan,” he said.

“You controlled it,” said Nathan briskly. “Next time you’ll control it better. Have some dinner now.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he sat up slowly and looked around the room,

“I’m fine, Peter. You burned clean.”

He fell asleep next to Peter that night. There wasn’t any reason not to share a bed anymore.

***

“You’re in pain,” said Peter one morning a few days later. Nathan had woken up with a muscle cramp from shoveling snow the day before.

“It’s not that bad,” Nathan mumbled. He put the pillow over his head to block out the light.

He could almost hear Peter roll his eyes. “Turn on your stomach,” said Peter. “I can work it out. Or heal it.”

Nathan didn’t argue further. Peter straddled him and ran his hands lightly over Nathan’s back, until he settled them over the knot of muscle and dug his thumbs in, causing a pleasurable pain through Nathan’s back. “You could let me do some shoveling,” said Peter.

“Mmmpphh,” said Nathan into the pillow, still not inclined to argue, not with Peter’s hands on him. After the knot in his back had dissipated, Nathan rolled onto his back with Peter still on top of him. Both of them were hard, with only the thin layer of pajama pants between them. Peter grinned wickedly down at him.

Why couldn’t it always be like this? Nathan wondered. Just him and Peter, and no guilt, no worries . . . He sat up, and Peter bent down to kiss him. Peter’s too-long hair fell over Nathan’s face, soft and smelling like the smoke from the woodstove. And then he remembered Peter’s poorly-controlled power and wondered how he could have forgotten it for even a moment.

“Don’t, Nathan,” said Peter. “I’ll handle it. I can stop it now.”

Nathan didn’t need any more invitation, just slow, luxurious, morning kissing. Peter’s mouth tasted sour, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered beyond Peter’s hands on him, Peter’s weight on top of him. The fire had gone out over night, but the storm had cleared, and the sun shone in the window, heating the bed Nathan lay back down and pulled Peter on top of him. He could feel Peter’s cock rubbing against his through the fabric, and he wanted more.

“There’s no hurry,” said Peter, with a grin. “You just lie back.” He wrapped his fingers around Nathan as he kissed and licked his way down Nathan’s chest. He pushed Nathan’s pajamas down over his hips and licked a long wet stripe up the underside of Nathan’s cock.

“There’s some hurry,” said Nathan. His voice caught, which ruined the sardonic tone he’d been aiming for. Peter smiled and sucked down all of it, drowning Nathan in sensation. Peter knew exactly what Nathan liked, how hard, how fast, when to back off from the edge and when to make him come so hard it left him gasping, and Nathan relaxed into it, letting Peter carry him to the edge. “Yes, yes, like that,” Nathan said when he almost there. He held onto Peter’s shoulder to keep him still until Nathan was done, but suddenly Peter wasn’t there anymore. He was on the other side of the room, looking scared.

“What happened?” Nathan asked, the pleasure fading as if it had never been.

“I thought if I was touching you, it would be okay, but then it started happening again and I . . .” Peter laughed shortly. “I think I teleported.

“Well, that’s new,” said Nathan. He suddenly felt very naked and cold. He pulled up his pajamas, and got out of bed, wrapping a blanket around him. “Hiro said he could . . . travel through space and time.”

“Another one,” said Peter with a resigned sigh.

“You didn’t explode,” said Nathan. “You’re getting close. Maybe next time you’ll get to . . .” He trailed off, embarrassed.

Peter smiled weakly. “Yeah, I hope so,” he said.

  
***

They didn’t wait very long to try again. Peter spent the next morning outside moving larger and larger branches with his—Sylar’s—telekinesis. It wasn’t difficult, and Peter thought maybe he could move on to practicing something else next. The teleportation—that was kind of freaky—but he’d wanted to be far away so the radiation leaking out of his skin wouldn’t harm Nathan, and then he was across the room. It was handy, and maybe he should work on it, but he had more fun things to practice now.

When he got back to the cabin, Nathan was taking a nap, something so lazy and uncharacteristic for him that Peter just watched him for a few minutes, and then he pulled off his boots and trousers and slid in beside him. He listened to Nathan’s half-asleep thoughts next to him, as he clung to the oblivion of dreaming. Then Nathan opened his eyes and Peter could feel Nathan’s disappointment when he, looked around the cabin and remembered they were still here.

“Today,” said Peter. “I can feel it.”

“Mmmm,” said Nathan. Peter liked him this way, indolent and half-asleep. He tangled his legs through Nathan’s and pulled Nathan toward him. He ran his hands over Nathan’s chest and teasingly ground his cock against Nathan’s before pulling away again. Nathan made a noise in his throat and rolled Peter onto his back.

Peter wanted Nathan inside him, driving out every other thought. “Fuck me,” said Peter. He wanted to stop feeling so brittle.

“Wait, let me get . . .” said Nathan.

Peter picked up the image from Nathan’s mind and used his telekinesis to bring the cooking oil over to the bed. It landed perfectly on the bedside table as if Peter had placed it there with his hands instead of his mind. Nathan raised his eyebrows. “That’s very useful,” he said, and Peter smiled.

Then he gasped as Nathan’s oil slicked fingers slid up inside him, opening him. Peter could feel the twin pressures of Nathan’s fingers and the weight of Nathan’s eyes on him, watching to make sure he was okay and not about to explode. Peter’s skin felt too tight, and he could feel the power build and ebb with every breath he took, but the waves didn’t seem to be getting bigger, even as Nathan’s hand around his cock brought him closer to the edge of orgasm.

“Nathan,” Peter breathed. There had been too much longing, too much lost time. The last time Nathan had fucked him was a month before Peter’s graduation party. They were on Peter’s bed in the apartment and it was fast and messy. Nathan wouldn’t say why he visited then, or tell Peter what was wrong. He left more disheveled and disturbed than he’d been when he arrived.

This time he had Nathan’s full attention, but Nathan’s touches were tantalizing, gentle, when Peter wanted to be bruised. “Make me sore tomorrow,” Peter said.

“You sure?” asked Nathan, in a voice gone gravelly. His expression barely changed, but his eyes turned dark and promising, and he dug his fingers in, not careful now, wringing a moan from Peter.

Then he was skin-on-skin inside of Peter, pushing in hard and fast, and it hurt, a searing, welcome pain that lit Peter’s nerves for a moment before fading too fast. Peter was hot all over, his skin by turns cold and burning. He could feel the fire in his veins, lighting its way along his insides, everywhere Nathan couldn’t reach. It was building and he saw droplets of molten fire that appeared on his fingertips and disappeared, leaving red marks like melted wax on Nathan’s arms where Peter grabbed him.

Not radiation burns, though—Peter could feel the difference now—this was pure and clean like the blood in his veins. He stopped trying to control it, just rode the waves of pleasure from Nathan fucking him and when Peter came the fire pulled back entirely. He was himself again, a welcoming body with a hard cock inside him, dragging out an orgasm. He bucked his hips up, and watched Nathan’s mouth soften into an “O” of pleasure, as he came too, finally letting go of the iron control that had kept Peter together these months.

“I did it,” said Peter, after Nathan lay next to him again. “I just . . . let go, and it did too.”

“That’s good,” said Nathan, sounding dazed. Peter pressed his fingers to the red marks on Nathan’s skin where his fingers had been, and they faded under his touch.

“I’ll make dinner,” said Peter. “You just stay in bed. Can I get you anything?”

Peter jumped out of the bed and put on his trousers and socks again. Nathan leaned back on the headboard and put his hands behind his head, looking self-satisfied. “You could get me a glass of wine or something,” said Nathan, with a grin.

***

Peter woke up before Nathan the next morning. He dressed quietly in the deep blue predawn, and went outside, closing the door softly behind him. It was cold enough that the snow creaked under foot when Peter walked on it, but the air was still. He walked down to the shore of the lake and out over the ice. Above the band of the Milky Way spilled across the sky. He watched as the stars winked out, even though the sky seemed to grow no lighter.

He heard Nathan before he saw him, the crunch of Nathan’s boots in the snow, growing nearer. He didn’t listen for Nathan’s thoughts—the silence was enough this morning. Nathan walked over to stand beside Peter. He rubbed his hands together against the cold that Peter could barely feel.

“Does this mean we have to go?” Peter asked. The sun, still below the horizon, started turning the hills across the lake pink. Nathan didn’t say anything for a moment. Peter listened to his thoughts; Nathan marvelled at the chilly perfection of the morning, but then circled back to New York, the plans already lined up in his head, to take down Bennet’s company and to get his life back.

“Yes,” said Nathan. “The world needs us.” Peter couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere. Nathan probably didn’t know either.

“Us?” said Peter.

Peter turned to look at him. “The world needs you,” said Nathan. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “And you need me.”


End file.
